


Don't You Know (I Love You)

by seasalticecream32



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aromantic Merlin, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6001414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasalticecream32/pseuds/seasalticecream32
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul mate AU where your soul mate’s name is written on you when you fall in love. Merlin doesn’t have a name on him but his name ends up on a lot of people. Not having a soul mate doesn’t bother him. But being everyone else’s, and watching them be alone because of it, or trying to make it work and it doesn’t, that’s hard. Merlin just wants his friends to be happy but he can’t do that at the expense of himself. That never stopped him from trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't You Know (I Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to do a different sort of story for this, but I don't know if I did or not. If there's any problems with the representation here, please let me know. Thank you! 
> 
> You can also chat with me at captainmerlin32 at tumblr if you need to. :) Enjoy!

Merlin breathed heavy, his nose buried in Gwaine's back. His eyes fluttered close. It smelled like sweat and shampoo and expensive cologne. Everything was warm. This was nice.

The morning was still early, and they had been up most of the night. Gwaine shifted and wrapped his arms around Merlin, crushing Merlin's face into his chest.

Merlin grumbled and pushed away, groaning as Gwaine chuckled, the sound vibrating all the way through Merlin's cheeks and down his shoulders. “Hey now, you're supposed to cook breakfast and coffee before you try to suffocate me.”

Gwaine snorted. “You're always a whiny wart aren't you, Merlin?”

Merlin shivered at the affection in Gwaine's teasing, the icy tendrils of panic snaking their way up his spine. He shook the feeling off.

Gwaine swore he didn't get attached, and Merlin hadn't seen anyone's name on him when they'd met. He stretched out. Blinked a few times.

Gwaine was singing in the kitchen. A warmth curled in Merlin'sbelly, a bit of left over closeness from last night, and stood. He wrapped a blanket around his hips, slipped out the door and down the narrow hallway of Gwaine's one bedroom apartment. Gwaine couldn't sing for anything, but that never kept him from trying. Merlin chuckled, padded across the kitchen, and wrapped his arms around Gwaine's middle.

Then he felt the raised bumps beneath his arm, the familiar sloping letters like an irritating tag against his skin.

Gwaine stopped singing.

Merlin pulled away entirely, holding Gwaine's arm up and inspecting the tender skin beneath, right over the ribs.

Merlin's name stood out, lined in red—it was fresh, probably only here this morning—and his stomach dropped. He offered Gwaine a shaky smile. He wanted to hide himself, all his unmarked skin, away forever and ever.

He tried for two months to love Gwaine in just the right way. Every morning, he checked as discreetly as possible to see if Gwaine's mark had shown up on his own skin, maybe hid on his thigh or marked across his back, but it was never any use. And his name never disappeared from Gwaine's ribs either.

But one night, after they'd laughed and watched a movie, the air heavy as it had been the morning Merlin had found the mark, Gwaine left and didn't come back.

Merlin didn't want to feel relieved, but he did.

It didn't mean it didn't hurt, but at least now he didn't have to check his skin every morning for a mark he knew would never show.

***

Freya was a soft smile and a sweet kiss and she was summer time in the snow. Everything Merlin had ever thought beautiful was Freya, and she was certain she was like him. She'd insisted as much. She'd never fallen in love, never wanted anyone.

Merlin spent his days with her, laughing and dancing and feeling not-alone.

She kissed him one day, on the beach and under the sun. He remembered the feel of warm sand under his back and the way her hair fell over his eyes when she leaned over him. He remembered the sad look in her blue eyes, the way she ran her thumb over his jawline. He remembered the beat of his heart, so painful in his chest, and knowing this was the end.

His name showed up on the underside of her bicep, innocuous and tiny.

Freya didn't abandon him, not really. She loved him and she would ask if he loved her. She only asked on winter nights, when the cocoa and piles of blankets weren't enough to warm her up.

_Merlin, do you love me?_

He'd fumble for an answer.

_Yes, Freya, of course I do. I've always loved you._

And she would smile, so sad, so knowing, and ask him again and break his heart.

_Yeah, but do you love me?_

And Merlin would falter, just enough, that she would change the subject. He knew what she was asking, and he knew the answer she wanted. He couldn't give it to her.

Freya slipped away on a wave and he never saw her again. Sometimes he wondered if she'd ever been there at all.

***

Merlin met a man with his name on him from the beginning. He was blonde haired and broken into so many pieces. Merlin kissed him in the rain and he almost thought he had it.

He could feel a familiarity, far away and beautiful, that called to him. Arthur said he felt it too, but Arthur was a ghost.

Arthur lived and breathed and walked in the streets, like all other people, but he had a look in his eye from long ago and he saw people and histories Merlin couldn't remember. When they kissed, Merlin was certain that he had kissed this man before. Kissing Arthur was like kissing the past and the future all at once.

But all of those emotions weren't love. At least, not the love that Arthur wanted.

Not the love that could heal him, not the love that could make all those fissures in him close up.

Merlin wasn't a cure and Arthur was hurting, and so when Gwen came along with her gentle touches and soothing words, and her soft smiles, Merlin stepped quickly to the side so Arthur might live again.

Merlin watched his name fade from across Arthur's chest, and a tightness in his lungs loosened.

He remained as unmarked as ever.

But at least Arthur and Gwen were his friends. And they believed him when he loved them.

***

Merlin met Mordred in a bar. Merlin didn't drink much, not any more. Drinking and hangovers and waking up to the smell of sour-party-breath was a Gwaine era thing, and Merlin was pretty sure he could live without that reminder for the rest of his life.

But this was a business trip and this was a business bar and he was supposed to mingle. Mingling was boring and bland.

He missed his friends and he missed having a warm body beside him, smiling at him and joking with him and expecting nothing from him he wasn't willing to give.

Merlin was willing to give everything he had, but it seemed like the only thing people wanted was something that only ever slipped through his fingers.

But Mordred didn't offer him love. He didn't smile at Merlin with shyness or with curiosity.

No, Mordred quirked a brow at him over the counter. He leaned in and grinned and showed Merlin the golden twist of magic in his hands.

Merlin found a connection without tenuous and foreign romance. He lifted his hand tentatively, curled his fingers slowly in, until he held a budding rose, petals brushing over his skin and fluttering from his grasp. Mordred grinned and waved him on.

_Maybe you were made like me._

Merlin didn't argue, but he followed, and he found others like him. Others with magic thrumming alive in their veins. Some of them were lovers, some of them were friends, but all of them were magic, and Merlin thrived.

Mordred kissed him on Christmas Eve. It was awkward and a bit wet, and Mordred wasn't very experienced. They'd shrugged off the awkward encounter, and Mordred showed Merlin his name written in loping letters over a porcelain white back.

Merlin waited for it to be awkward, wondered if he'd lose Mordred and this wonderful new world with him, but nothing ever happened. And eventually, Merlin's name faded from Mordred's back. Merlin didn't know if any others ever replaced it. Mordred never told him.

***

Morgana was afraid, and she clung to him in the beginning. She'd never understood her visions, never quite forgiven those who'd hurt her. Her father, her mentor, her friends. Merlin had been a safe place, a wise and accepting rock in an ever shifting sea.

He hadn't meant to cause this.

Later, she would insist he hadn't. That things had gotten out of hand and they hadn't understood each other.

But he wasn't sure he'd ever forget the look of betrayal on her face when she'd asked him if he had a mark, her hand clasped desperately over her wrist, and he'd explained he didn't… had never… and would never.

Morgana had kissed him anyway, and a younger him may have kissed her back, if only for the comfort she obviously needed.

But he was older now, and he was learning things. And so he pulled away, apologized, and left. He did the leaving now.

If he left first, it wouldn't hurt.

Which was a lie, he found.

It always hurt.

The most frustrating part was that he always loved them. He'd loved Morgana, he'd loved Freya, he'd loved Arthur and Mordred and Gwaine. But there was love and there was _love_ and somehow, those two words were as different as they were the same.

She found him and told him she loved him both ways, and wouldn't let him leave again.

***

He met Gwaine again, a year later. He was alone, his shirt slouchy and his pants rolled up. He didn't have to tell Merlin that his name was still on his ribs. Merlin could see it in the way his eyes squinted at the sides when they saw each other, at the way that his hand wandered over to his side.

Merlin almost passed him by, but Gwaine called out to him. “Hey, whiny wart, how about a movie?”

Merlin turned around with a growl, angry and hurt, but Gwaine was already lifting his hands in apology.

“I don't expect anything from you Merlin. I just miss your company. Miss having a friend to watch shit horror movies with.” Gwaine shrugged, in a nonchalant way, and Merlin felt his heart break a little more.

“I still don't have a mark. Not anyone's. I'm never going to.” Merlin stated it as bluntly as he could, crossing his arms across his torso and watching Gwaine carefully.

“Yeah, well, we can't help that, yeah? But you know, I'd like to not lose a friend because I'm an idiot and I can't accept things. So, I'm sorry.” Gwaine flipped his hair out of his eyes. “You're a good man, Merlin. Always have been, always will be. Better than me. Better than any of us.”

Merlin grinned. “You should see what I can do now.”

“Yeah, you know, I should.”

And maybe Gwaine was still in love with him, would always be. Merlin could tell, even when Gwaine was smiling at a bartender or handing a pretty lady some flowers.

But Merlin learned that sometimes people came back. And sometimes people learned. And sometimes, he didn't have to be alone. He wasn't being punished. There was no fault to be fixed.

And learning that was enough for Merlin.

One night, when he was sleepy and leaning back on Gwaine's couch, belly full of summer soup and mind groggy and slow, Merlin looked at Gwaine. “You know, I _do_ love you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, Merlin.” Gwaine reached over, smoothed his hand over Merlin's hair and smiled. It was the smile Merlin knew to be the opposite of happy. “I know. There's my love and there's your love, and they're not the same.”

Merlin opened his mouth to argue. They weren't, but that didn't mean…

“But they're both good, yeah?” Gwaine leaned over, patted Merlin's shoulder, and moved to turn the light off. “Both good.”

 


End file.
